The SIM PlanetQuest mission, which lost much of its funding after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration redirected its emphasis toward manned spaceflight two years ago, got a vote of support Thursday from the House Appropriations Committee.

The committee included $71.6million for SIM – originally the Space Interferometry Mission – in its Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations bill, although no funds were actually handed out.

Still, the news was lauded by committee member Adam Schiff, D-Pasadena, although he noted it was only a small step forward for the sidelined mission.

“We still have a long fight ahead of us, but I think it’s a fight worth having,” Schiff said.

Jim Marr, SIM’s deputy project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said it was “encouraging that the House is supportive of the project, but it’s not something to get excited about.”

The technology for the mission, he said, was completed in 2005.

The House bill also contains $625.7 million for the Mars Exploration Program, which includes the Mars Rovers, and $10 million for the development of a new mission to the solar system’s outer planets.

The bill must still pass through the House, after which it will move on to a joint conference committee of the House and Senate where any budgetary differences will be hammered out.

The Senate Appropriations Committee bill did not include funds for SIM.

“This is the beginning of the process,” said Scott Gerber, communications director for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I think that it’s a positive sign that there’s increased funding on the House side.”

The final number, which must be then be approved by the President, typically ends up somewhere between the House and Senate proposals.

Under President Bush’s proposed budget, the SIM project would receive only $20 million a year for the next five years – enough to continue developing the technology but not to get the planet-spotting satellite off the ground.

“A mission like this is a complicated thing to get funded,” Marr said. “You really have to have congressional support, science community support, and NASA has to have the funding wedge.”

Even if SIM received the full House amount, he said, the mission’s fate could still hinge on whether the funding would continue in future years.

“Although Congress and NASA works one year at a time, it has to be done in a larger context,” Marr said.

JPL and NASA Headquarters are now working together, he said, to consider a range of possible fates for the mission.